


Fate Suspends Uncertain Victory

by dancinbutterfly



Series: The Ecstasy [3]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, Cuddling, Desperation, Dirty Talk, Discussion of Dub-Con and Non-Con, Dynamic Queer, Gender politics, Hugging, Kissing, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omegaism, Queer Character, Queer Politics, Somnophilia, blackout sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-08 19:52:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3221339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer at the dacha has ups and downs for Dima and Zhenya both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In a Shapeless Flame

**Author's Note:**

> I'm floored at the response this has gotten. I'm working my butt of to produce as much as I can as fast as I can because of your support. Thank you thank you thank you.
> 
> WARNING: This section deals with rape as it relates to heat. Dima and Zhenya agreed to the sex before the heat so there is no rape but Dima reacts badly to what happens when Zhenya is in heat. So rape is talked about. Please protect yourself. Also, Zhenya is still 17 and Dima is still in his 30s and I'm still gonna warn for that.
> 
> As always, the title of the fic is from John Donne's the Ecstasy. Chapter titles are from Donne's Air and Angels.

Things start off slow and easy but the first off-season heat is blinding once it really gets going. It's the first time in his life that Zhenya has lost time that didn't involve head trauma. He remembers climbing in the shower with Dima and then suddenly its thirty-five hours later and he's on the throw rug in the living room, on shaky elbows and knees with a knot locked inside him as wet with sweat and slick and come as he would be in the shower. Dima is draped over him mouth open but still against his neck which hurts, fuck, and so do his thighs and wrists and fingers and lower back. His head hurts too in a dizzy, fuzzy sort of way.

He manages a whimper before his body gives out and he crashes to the floor. The only reason Dima doesn't crush him when he goes is because he had one palm and one knee planted on the ground which hold him up, barely. It pulls them in separate directions though, almost pulling the knot free before it's small enough.  Zhenya sobs in pain like he's never felt and forces himself to follow.

"Stop. Stop stop fuck, it hurts."

"Okay. Okay stopping. Christ. Here." Dima's moving then close together for a moment then oh, damn, pulling out too early, too soon, fuck. Zhenya whimpers in pain but Dima shushes him with hands on his face and neck, rolling him onto his back and straddling his hips. "Look at me. Come on now."

Focusing his gaze on Dima's pale blue eyes is actual work but Zhenya manages. He expects softness around them, crinkled lines cut through skin by a smile but instead they are stormy and shadowed. 

"You still with me? Zhenya, answer me?"

"What? I'm right here."

"You are. God. Thank God." He finds himself being kissed like he never has before. His face is both Dima's hands, warm and tight on his cheeks. It's deep and sucking but there's no tongue, nothing but desperation that makes him blink in confusion when they break for air. 

Dima has tears in his eyes. They make the blue shine brighter somehow. Zhenya hates it, reaching up as if to wipe them away. Dima catches his wrist and shakes his head. He manhandles them into the bed, forces food and water down Zhenya's throat which both taste amazing. He didn't realize he was starving and thirsty until he has them and Dima is standing beside the bed, watching.

"It looks cold out there," he says gently, turning back the covers. Dima looks down at the rumpled sheets, at his face then away. "Dima?"

"It's fine. I'm fine. It's summer. I'm warm."

"You're shivering," he notes, taking inventory. He's still wet between his thighs, a mix of come and slick and sweat that wasn't there before. Now though, it feels like that wetness is a part of him, ingrained, warm with the rest of his body. 

"I need to stay over here."

"Come back." Zhenya murmurs and when Dima shakes his head a quiet, "Alpha, please," slips out. Dima actually winces like he's been hit. Zhenya frowns and moves to get up. That seems to be the trick though because finally Dima gets on the bed.

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't- Don't overexert yourself. You've been running yourself ragged. Let yourself be you for a little while."

"I'm fine."

"You're not," Dima chokes out. "You're not. Jesus, Zhenya you- You've been gone for a day and a half," which, okay, he knows he's lost some time but that happens on occasion. Heats can be so intense that the mind blanks out the memory of the sensation to defend itself, just like it does with extreme pain. It's uncommon but no more so than being left handed or farsightedness.

"So I blacked out. It happens."

"You didn't black out," Dima says, the words ripped from him. "You weren't there. You were- You weren't- You could barely speak, barely respond when I tried to talk to you." He tucks his knees up to his chest and peers at Zhenya over them. "It was like you were completely gone and I was alone with something that looked like you but it was empty." 

He scoots across the bed and realizes that Dima isn't shivering, he's shaking. His whole body is vibrating and there are tears in his eyes. He places his palm on Dima's knee, stilling it. Dima lifts it, lacing their fingers together and kissing the back of his hand, holding it to his trembling lips.

"I called David. I wanted to call emergency services but hockey. You love it. So I called him instead."

"What'd he say?"

"He made some calls, got back to me, said that Metallurg management thought it'd be best if you got started on your new schedule sooner rather than later. They dosed you with heat inducers without your consent, Zhenya." He blinks, casting his gaze upwards in an effort to stop himself from crying. He fails and tears bead on his dark eyelashes like glass in the lamplight. "David said he fired two of the team doctors when I called him back, you were asleep, more like exhausted into unconsciousness really." He sniffs and rubs his cheek against his shoulder. "He tried to report them but if he did it'd get you outed to the league."

"So he didn't."

"No. He won't. Only if you want him too." 

Zhenya shakes his head, feeling bewildered. He doesn't remember anything. He feels all right, except for the low ache of heat that only goes away when the cycle is over but nothing so extreme as what Dima is describing. He certainly doesn't feel violated the way he probably should considering everything that's been done to him. He feels strangely guilty for not feeling worse when Dima is so wrecked. "It's okay, Metiya. I promise."

"No," he whispers. "No, Zhenya, its not okay. It's like- like I-"

"Shut up." Zhenya snaps. "Don't fucking say it because you didn't."

Dima sobs, broken and wrenched from somewhere deep inside his chest. He presses the back of Zhenya's hand to his forehead as if the contact could erase the experience from his brain the way it had been wiped from Zhenya's. "I was part of it. Sweet Christ, I'm so sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry," he promises as he closes the space between them to wrap himself around Dima. He is older than Zhenya and an alpha but the urge to take care of him throbs inside him more powerful than heat could ever be despite his youth and omega nature. He strokes his free hand up and down Dima's back. "You're who I wanted to take me, Dima. They did this to me, not you. You wouldn't. You would never hurt me. I know that."

"It feels like it. It feels like they've made me into something to hurt you."

Zhenya wraps his arms around Dima's waist. He's stronger than Dima. He's taller, broader, bigger and he isn't letting go. "Don't let them take you away from me."

Dima puts his face in Zhenya's neck. He hangs on tight, so tight, and for the first time, Zhenya hates his predicament. He never cared before but he was the only one it was hurting. The devastation it wrought on Dima was unforgivable and Zhenya didnt know if he'd ever be able to live with it.  Then again, what couldn't he live with for hockey? Zhenya was starting to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he did have a line when it came to his love of the game.

"Stay with me," Dima whispers and he sounds very young, younger even than Zhenya is now. "Don't leave again."

"I didn't mean to."

"I know. I know but you can't. It was a nightmare."

"I'm sorry."

"Don’t. Please.”

“Enough of this. I’m a grown man. I can decide what I want and that is you.”

“I just-“

He puts his hand on Dima’s face and traces the wrinkles around his eyes that may not have been the last time he saw him. “Until my heat is over you can fuck me whenever. Even if I’m asleep, okay? Don’t feel like you’re violating me. Not ever.”

Dima laughs. “Asleep. You know thats a kink all it’s own. Somnophilia.”

“How do you know these things?” Zhenya demands. “You are so weird.”

“You like it.” Dima says, as he always does, the familiarity of it makes Zhenya uncoil from the base of his spine and up into his neck.

“Come back to bed with me.”

“We need to change the sheets.” Dima says. “Will you help me?”

It is so domestic an idea that his inner animal practically purrs. He’s never fought his Omega instincts and all of a sudden the urge to nest is overwhelming. He is warm with the lull of heat but he can feel it slowly building again. He wants to be taken in hand in a safe place with a safe mate. “Yes. Fuck. Yes.”

Dima covers his hand and pulls it down between them. “Come on then. Let’s get out of here.” 

Zhenya hums in agreement. He trails far enough behind that Dima has to pull, pleased to be led.


	2. Bid Love Ask

They make their meals in the kitchen and Zhenya teaches Dima to cook. He’s abysmal.

“Misha did the cooking,” Dima protests when he burns eggs in the pan. “I can do a takeaway.”

“There isn’t a takeaway for miles,” Zhenya says. He is sore from a long fuck and a longer run. He feels good, happy. Before this he’d never had sex outside of heat. Dima let him top and it was good but not his favorite. He still likes to be filled, to be called a whore and a slut in the sweet way Dima says it like he’s precious. Only now they can take their time with slow kisses and a slower roll of hips. 

Their love making helps Zhenya forget that he isn’t here voluntarily. He can pretend is just off-season vacation with his alpha.

“More’s the pity,” he bemoans. “I can only take so much chicken.”

“My chicken is better than any chicken this Misha made.” Zhenya declares, wrapping himself around Dima. He is bigger and his chin fits well on Dima’s shoulder. 

“Mm, afraid not but you taste better.” Dima turns his head and kisses his neck. “And feel better.” He presses himself along back along Zhenya’s front. “And smell better.” 

“But my chicken is not as good.”

“We had five years for him to come up with many different kinds.” Dima sighs and looks down at the pan. “He was supposed to make dinner the night I found him in bed with another beta.”

Zhenya freezes, shocked. “You were in an infertile relationship?”

“Mhm. He was a beta and a painter and a cheating bastard and I loved him.” Dima sighs and rests his head against Zhenya’s shoulder. “You know the rules about infertile relationships as well as I do but if it were legal, I would’ve married him.”

“How long again was this?”

“Three years?” Dima muses finally releasing the frying pan in defeat. “Four this fall.”

Zhenya leans against the counter and stares at Dima. It never occurred to him to ask before but now he just has to. “Are you queer?”

“Yep. I only sleep with men but alphas and betas too.” He winks. “I’m a gold star.”

Zhenya stares more. He’s never met an out queer person before. Not that he knew of. Russia was even crueler to the queer population than omegas. To like to be in an infertile relationship was no matter what your gender and sex was bad enough but only betas could be homodynamic. For an alpha or omega to be homo or pandynamic on top of single-sex exclusive? Jesus. Zhenya couldn’t imagine.

“That has to be hard.”

“It can but its not like it’s obvious and I’m out to everyone who matters know and none of them care.” He tilts his head to the side. “Do you care? Because I’m still a queer man. Just because I’m in a traditional relationship with you doesn’t change that.” For the first time in their entire acquaintance, Dima actually looks nervous.

Zhenya can’t have that. Besides he’s spent enough of his life in hiding to empathize. Mostly he’s stuck on that word. Relationship. “We’re in a relationship?”

Dima steps forward and Zhenya lets the smaller man back him into the counter. “We call, we text. We’ve been together alone for three weeks exclusively, with fucking. What would you call it?”

Zhenya doesn’t say anything to that. It feels too big. So he goes back to the original question. “I don’t care what your orientation is Dima as long as you keep wanting to sleep with me.”

Dima’s smile is lopsided and bright. “You couldn’t keep me away.” Then he kisses Zhenya, also lopsided and bright and that’s it. Zhenya is so done.

The chicken burns because Dima fucks him bent over the kitchen counter, their clothes still on, pants around their ankles. Zhenya claws at the linoleum and his feet scramble for purchase on the hardwood floor. 

Dima bites his earlobe. “My sweet slut,” he practically croons. “You’re so beautiful, so strong. Do you know how glorious you are?”

When Dima says it, it feels true. He revels in his body, his wet ass, his thick thighs, his muscled stomach and arms, his big hands. He is everything he should be and more. He’s an omega and in this moment he’s free. The very thought draws a strangled scream out of his throat.

Dima chuckles. “That’s it. Let go for me.” He reaches out with his right hand, covers Zhenya’s and laces their fingers together. Zhenya grips his hand, clinging with a desperation that rivals heat. 

He whimpers as Dima peppers his neck was sloppy open mouth kisses. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. You can do it. Just let go.”

He thrusts in and hits Zhenya’s prostate just right and he screams, loud and long and guttural. Each slam pushes another sound out of him from the chest until screams turn to sobs. He can’t remember the last time he cried but the pleasure and intensity is just too much. He can feel the tears coursing down his face.

“That’s right,” Dima murmured gently, warmly. He leans forward and kisses away one of the tears. “My good boy, let it all out. Take what you need.”

“You,” Zhenya sobs. “Need you.”

Dima wraps his left arm around Zhenya’s chest, anchoring him.“You have me. You do. Come for me baby. Let it all go.”

He does. He comes so hard he goes blind, the kitchen disappearing from his view. He’s crying and spasming against the hard edge of the counter and the soft lines of Dima’s back, slick drenching his thighs and come splattering the counters. He barely feels Dima knot. All he’s aware of is the way they sink to the ground tangled together. 

He ends up sitting in Dima’s lap, a reverse nesting doll, his head lolling back. Dima is gnawing at his neck, not breaking the skin just bruising. Zhenya feels limp and happy so of course thats when a slamming knock lands on the front door of the dacha.

“What the fuck?” Dima mutters.

Zhenya turns his head into the side of Dima’s face and pretends that his tears are from the intensity of the orgasm and not because he knows exactly who that is. “It’s someone from Metallurg.”

“Zhenya no.”

“It’s been three weeks.”

Arms tighten around him as another knock echoes through the house. “They can’t think you’re ready for another heat.”

“I don’t think they care.” Carefully he extricates himself from Dima and pulls his pants closed. He makes his way to the door and pulls it open to exactly what he was expecting. Two alphas, a woman in a sharp suit and a man in khakis and a white coat.

“Mr. Malkin,” The woman says with a nod. “I’m Anya Gomorov and this is Dr. Uralsky. May we come in.”

He folds his arms over his chest and glares at them. His jaw muscle actually ticks. “No.”

“I don’t think you understand your situation. I wasn’t really asking.” With that,she shoulders her way inside, the doctor following close on her heels.


	3. Angels Affect Us Oft

They take vial after vial of his blood while Gomorov reads his rights and discusses the upcoming season with him. “And so of course we’re going to need you to stay.”

“I can’t.” This summer was his sacrifice. After this he’s going to Pittsburgh. He’s getting on a plane and never looking back except at his mother and Dima. That was the deal.

Her face goes soft. “Mr Malkin,” she says, her voice firm but a little sad, “You are aware that the organization has your passport aren’t you?”

“So I’ll get it back.”

“As an attorney, I’d advise against it. It would require a messy, likely public court battle that would require you to confess that you’ve been lying on your medical records for the last 17 years. That’s a crime and your parents are complicit. You and your family could do real time and you’d still be subject to travel restrictions.” She reaches across the kitchen table where they’re seated and covers his hand. “The risk isn’t worth it, son.”

He pulls his hand away like her skin burns him. “You would-“

“Not me. The organization. I’m here because my associate was disrespectful and failed to inform you of your full situation.” Gomorov gives him a warm smile. “It’s a multimillion ruble contract to play a sport you love, Malkin. It’s hardly prison.”

Thats what she thinks. She’s an alpha. She’s never had to hide, had to shrink herself. She’s got higher status then beta and omega men and women alike and there’s only a sliver of sexism left of alpha males against their female peers. She doesn’t know what kind of cage secrecy can be.

“How long-“

“Five years until you can reach free agency but you can’t leave the KHL for eight.”

A strangled sound comes from the other room. Great. Dima is eavesdropping. Just want he needs. “There’s no way to reduce that?”

“I can try. Thats why I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to see if you’d accept some terms of negotiation. I think that I could maybe get it down to three and six?” she offers. “I’ll talk to your agent and the GMs, tell the the risk isn’t worth your skill, something like that.”

Zhenya sits back in his chair and sighs. “You think they’d buy that?”

“I think you have a good agent and I am exceptional at my job,” she says. Then she turns to Dr. Uralsky. “All under doctor and lawyer client patient confidentiality you understand.”

“Of course,” Uralsky agrees. He pulls out a two syringes, full of bright green liquid, the other a pale blue. “And now the hard part. Which do you want first? Inducer or birth control?”

Zhenya turns his left forearm up towards the ceiling. “Birth control.”

Uralsky nods gravely. “Smart boy.”

The needle slides under his skin and blue fluid burns into his veins. The inducer on the other hand goes in cold as ice. Zhenya would laugh at the heat it will wash over him.

“We’ll be back in three weeks to induce your third heat,” says Gomorov. She rises and holds out a hand. Startled, Zhenya finds himself shaking it. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

And just like that they’re gone. Zheya sits for awhile, staring at the little bandaid on his arm. Its yellow. It makes him ache for a future that feels too far to dream of now. He gives himself a moment to grieve then gets up and goes into the living room where he finds Dima pretending to read. Pretending because the book is upside down.

He takes the book from him and drops it on the food. Dima’s narrow hips are the perfect width to comfortably straddle so he does, sitting on his legs and looking down at the man. He looks destroyed, worse than Zhenya.

“Metiya.” He runs his fingers through thick salt and pepper hair. “Hey.It’s okay.”

“I can’t do this,” Dima whispers.

“For me.” Zhenya returns in the same low tones. “Please don’t leave me alone.”

Dima grabs his hips and squeezes. “I won’t leave. I just. Zhenya, this shit scares the hell out of me.”

“You have my permission if I disappear again. It’ll be okay.”

“That’s not-“ Dima shakes his head. “Never mind. Just sit here and be with me while we can.” He moves his hands off Zhenya’s hips to stroke and down his back. “Tell about what you’re going to do when that lawyer gets you out of this mess.”

“It’s always been the NHL,” Zhenya admits. “Always. Since I was little.”

“Yeah? I don’t follow US teams but I go to the states a few times a year for work.”

“I was drafted second.”

Dima snorts. “After who? You’re the best.”

“Ovechkin.”

“Hack.”

Zhenya grins at him. “Sasha’s not so bad.”

“But you’re that good.”

“This is true.” He agrees with a smile, combing back Dima’s hair over and over. “He’s with the Capitals and sometimes I’m so jealous I can’t breathe.”

“He’s also an alpha,” Dima points out. “No restrictions.”

“No, he didn’t play for the KHL at all,” Zhenya sighs. “When we were playing together in Juniors you would never have guessed that he’d be the smart one.”

“But you are. So why did you do it?” Dima blurts. He turns pink. 

It looks good on him. Bitable. Zhenya hates that he can tell if he feels that way because he just does or if the intense heat inducers are already starting to sexualize his thoughts. He thinks its the latter because he has a hard time dragging his brain back to the question. Or maybe its just a confusing question. “What?”

“You knew what the KHL rules were but you did it anyway. The things I’ve heard - You’ve been preparing for the KHL specifically your whole life. Americans don’t care what their athletes dynamics are so long as they’re men, which, is just baffling but whatever. I don’t run, you know, sports.” 

Outside of hockey and football, which conforms mostly per FIFA regs not out of any great love for beta athletes, leagues are organized by dynamic not sex. Its why so many beta boys get into hockey and football in the first place. No one gives a shit about non-alpha league sports. 

“I love my country,” Zhenya says because that should be obvious. “I was always going to serve and I was never going to be a nurse’s assistant in the army.”

“So,” Dima trails off and shakes his head. “You did the responsible fucking thing.”

“If cheating your way out of mandatory service by playing hockey is the responsible thing I guess I did. I just thought I would be done by now.”

“Where are you supposed to be?” Dima asks, soothing the question with the warm strokes of his hands up and down Zhenya’s back.

“Pittsburgh,” Zhenya sighs because sweet Christ do Dima’s hands feel good. 

“Where is that?”

“Pennsylvania. The Penguins chose me. Their owner is an omega.” He closes his eyes, smiles, and noses at Dima’s temple. “The first omega captain to win the Stanley Cup, first omega man to own an NHL team, most dynamic diverse team in the league.” He kisses the place where hair and skin meet. “Gomorov is going to help. I’m going to go there.”

“Yes you are,” Dima kissing his throat. His fingers dig into his back, harder now. “You need your own Stanley Cup after all.”

“Mm, I do,” he mumbles, fever flushing through him. This is different than the oral inducers he took the first cycle. It’s faster and thicker. “Lots of cups. Dima? Don’t leave me.”

“I’m right here.”

“No. I’m- it’s- the heat. Don’t leave me alone. I’m asking, okay? Like somnophilia remember?”

Dima pulls back and meets his eyes. They’re blue like an overcast sky. He gives one grave nod then kisses Zhenya again and Zhenya is gone before Dima can even knot him. 

He doesn’t come back to himself for forty-six hours. When he does he’s alone in bed but he can hear Dima moving somewhere in the house. He pulls the sheet off the bed pads to the kitchen in the near dark.

Dima is sitting at the kitchen table. From what Zhenya can tell, he’s talking to his tea, muttering under his breath and rubbing his face. He looks wan in the natural light coming in through the windows. Zhenya is out to do nothing but soothing when he steps up behind him and presses a kiss to the back of his neck but Dima jumps about a foot in the air, nearly falling off his stool.

Zhenya catches him around the waist, steadying him and crowds in close beside him. “Hey,” he says softly. “You okay?”

“Zhenya,” Dima whispers. “This is-“ He buries his face in Dima’s sheet-covered shoulder. Zhenya cradles his head to him. “When you go, it kills me.”

“But I’m back now.” He kisses the crown of Dima’s head. “I’m fine.”

“I’m not.” It comes out as a broken sound as he winds his arms around Zhenya’s neck. “And you’re not. You can’t do this for six or eight more years.”He tilts his head back and Zhenya can see a hurricane in his eyes. “They’ll kill you. Zhenya,” his computer calloused fingers cup Zhenya’s face. “I think they want to kill you.”

He feels hollow and exhausted and for the first time, he doesn’t think Dima is over reacting. He feels empty, like pieces of himself are missing. He doesn’t know that he’d survive half a decade of summers like this, especially if Dima ever decides to walk away which he has more than a right to. He just don’t know what to do about it.

“I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. Run with me tomorrow?”

Dima nods against him and presses kisses against Zhenya’s collarbone. “Okay. I’ll run with you. We’ll run this summer down.”


End file.
